Talk:Mental breakdown

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[edit] Cites

At a glance, that website doesn't seem to support very much of what is said here; in fact, the way I read it, it's kind of contradictory to acute attack of mental illness such as depression or anxiety; the website linked claims the term "nervous breakdown" is used to conceal more serious disorders because of stigma and then goes on with a laundry list of disorders with symptoms similar to those described in the article, which sounds like it'd fit better here, to me. Then again, I know bupkis about psychology, so I'm hoping some way more capable hands come along. - Ambientlight 18:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this article should be VfD'ed in its current state, if it isn't cleaned up. I have some experience with many of the things colloquially referred to as mental breakdowns, and this article is seriously off, based on my own experiences and that of others. Zuiram 15:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Observation: historical perspective?

I have been reading several historical accounts recently and noted that the term "nervous breakdown" was much more commonly used in the late-19th and early-20th century. I assume this is because the advance of psychological research has pinpointed the actual source of a "nervous breakdown". As such, I would think this article should mainly be about the history of the term and not the psychological science behind it. --DeweyQ 16:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Example account:

  • Tom Adriann "suffered a nervous breakdown" and threw himself overboard (in Boy Charlton article).


Aug. 27/06 Since the term is not even accepted in modern psychiatry, this entry really makes no sense. It cites several cases such as Sylvia Plath and calls them nervous breakdowns, when those were not the clinical terms for what she underwent. She had depression and may have had a mental illness. She was given shock treatments. She ended up committing suicide. Putting her into this article without a better explanation of her illness is misleading.

This article states contradictory examples, and states that a nervous breakdown lasts a week, yet a nervous breakdown is really stress or burnout. This article really needs to be rewritten completely. It should be explained more clearly that it's an outmoded term that belongs to an earlier era which supported the concept of mental asylums, which were meant to be places for people suffering burnout to recover in a peaceful setting.

In today's world, nervous breakdown is rarely used but is a slang for a burnout. Burnout and its after effects can go on for years, even with treatment. It is far too hazy the way it is discussed to have any meaning for an encyclopedia entry.

Popular Depictions:

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the entire book Catcher in the Rye Holden's stay in a mental hospital due to a nervous breakdown?


[edit] Sudden Dissociative Mental Break

This article does not include the information that the term "Nervous Breakdown" was replaced by "Dissociative Mental Break."

A private psychology project on the Internet argues that these mental events are actually outcomes of exposure to "Visual Subliminal Distraction."

The phenomenon and conflict of the physiology of sight that causes exposure can be demonstrated with a small experiment.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/a_demonstration_you_can_do.htm Mental events like nervous breakdowns happen around the world where the special circumstances are created by living conditions. http://visionandpsychosis.net/Culture_Bound_Syndromes.htm

The index page is: http://VisionAndPsychosis.Net L K Tucker 68.223.108.236 15:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Without any medical documentation, this has no place in the article. Also, I'd say it seems pretty dubious. I see no correlation here, and have experienced brief reactive psychosis both in the strong presence and complete absence of the distractions they warn against. This is congruent with what all non-epileptics I know have experienced: no correlation. Zuiram 15:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You will not find medical documentation for Subliminal Distraction. It comes from the Design discipline.

To verify this phenomenon you will have to make phone calls to designers working for office furniture makers. Designers, engineers, and psychologists solved the problem of sudden mental breaks in crowded offices by 1968. Although that discovery is sometimes mentioned as a historical reference the problem escaped knowledge of medical and psychiatric practitioners.

Those designers did not understand what they had found. When they solved their immediate problem they stopped. No one ever made the connection to mental illness. So little is thought of the problem that it does not appear in textbooks. It is communicated in lecture material.

There was a general re-naming of conditions in the DSM that eliminated "Nervous Breakdown." But it still is recorded in Culture Bound Syndromes as "Ataque de Nervios" in Latin America, the Caribbean and Latin ethnic groups of the Mediterranean.

I don't understand why when writing an article Wikipedia authors insist on using the names of "disorders" from the DSM. You are copying a convention used without knowledge of cause.

Today the term Nervous Breakdown is used as an 'idiom of distress' just as Ataque de Nervios is.

I agree that the article should be edited or removed.

L K Tucker 69.1.46.140 (talk) 05:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tags

I removed the recent laundry list of possible improvements because it was so long as to be unhelpful. This is a WP:STUB. Of course it needs improvement. If you want to tag the article with the most important issues, then that's fine with me. However, a list of ten different problems is more likely to leave editors feeling overwhelmed instead of inspiring them to action. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2008 (UTC)